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World Conference Controversy Continues at UN Permanent Forum

Gale Courey Toensing

5/9/14

The 13th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues begins next week with a full agenda of crucial issues, important side events – and unresolved questions centering on the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples that is scheduled to take place in the fall.

The Permanent Forum will be held at the U.N. in New York May 12-23. The annual event usually draws more than 2,000 representatives of Indigenous Peoples and nations from around the world.

This past winter, however, attention shifted to a decision by the President of the General Assembly (PGA) John Ashe that Indigenous Peoples would not have full and equal participation on par with states in preparing for and at the conference. Most significantly, according to the North American Indigenous Peoples Caucus (NAIPC) – one of seven voluntary global caucuses that represent the world’s Indigenous Peoples at the U.N. – Indigenous Peoples would not be involved in drafting the conference’s outcome document, which would sum up the conference’s decisions on how to define the scope of Indigenous Peoples rights, the best practices for implementing those rights and other issues affecting the relationship between states and the world’s 379 million-plus Indigenous Peoples. The NAIPC is one of seven voluntary global caucuses that represent the world’s Indigenous Peoples at the U.N.

In March the NAIPC adopted a resolution by “absolute consensus” to call for the cancellation of the WCIP and promised to encourage other regions to join in a global consensus to stop it from taking place.

Ashe later modified his proposal to include indigenous participation by two “advisers” but they would still be excluded from active participation in drafting the outcome document. The proposal caused some conflict in the NAIPC with some people suggesting that the new proposal now made it possible to participate in the WCIP and others arguing that it was essentially the same as the old proposal and that the resolution for cancelling the conference stands. The question of NAIPC’s participation remains unclear.

A two-day interactive discussion hosted by the PGA that was planned to take place at the end of the forum will not happen, said Andrea Carmen, the executive director of the International Indian Treaty Council.

“These issues of rights and full participation are really being played out,” Carmen told ICTMN. “They’re not going to do the interactive dialogue on the so-called World Conference because the president of the General Assembly has not announced what the formula for participation is so [the indigenous representatives] have not accepted yet. And there’s nothing to talk about – we were supposed to focus on the outcome document and people are still grappling with [the question of participation].”

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What a load of nonsense! They refuse to allow indigenous people to have a say on what will be on a document that pertains to them? How ridiculous is that!
This sounds mighty familiar to we First Nations peoples doesn't it! How often have we had that all happen in the treaties we were asked to sign by the USA, Canada & various European countries through the past few centuries? MORE than we care to count!
It is foolish, egotistical & arrogant of a entity under the guise of the UN to dare think they know what is best for Indigenous people when we aren't even being allowed to draft the final document!
I would urge all peoples being denied their rightful place at the table to simply walk out, protest & expose what is going on with this all.
No one knows what is best for a people but those who are of those certain groups. To say otherwise is foolishness & arrogant. It sounds to me that a certain group are so full of themselves that they can't even see it!
Ask we First Nations peoples how well that all turned out for us!